John le Carré (1931-2020)

[dask]

John le Carré, definitive Cold War spy novelist, has died at 89

"We have lost a great figure of English literature," said publisher Curtis Brown CEO Johnny Geller.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Robert Zwilling]

A great storyteller with both feet solidly on the ground. R.I.P.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

R. I. P. David Cornwell. Greatest spy thriller writer ever. Never understood why he never won an award.

 

[mosaix]

RIP David Cornwell.

Fascinating background. His father was a confidence trickster who associated with the Krays.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Never understood why he never won an award.

He refused the rewards. "I don't want to posture as somebody who's been honored by the state and must therefore somehow conform with the state," le Carré said. "And I don't want to wear the armor."

 

[BigBadBob141]

Really enjoyed "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and " Smiley's People".
R.I.P. John.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I've got a plan to read every John le Carre novel starting with his first. I'm doing it as I once sometime ago I met him, and I want to do it as a tribute to his greatness.

 

[Rodders]

Never read John Le Carre. I’ll try and address that because I know how well regarded he is.

R. I. P. John.

 

[BigBadBob141]

If you interested Tinker...... and Smiley's People are actually part of a trilogy called The Hunt For Karla, the middle volume which I haven't yet read is called "The Honorable School Boy".

 

[Toby Frost]

That's a shame. I liked le Carre's books, although I found that they varied a lot in style. I found some of the later books a bit preachy, but Tinker Tailor is very good indeed. My favourite is The Secret Pilgrim, a set of connected short stories, some of which are excellent. Le Carre wrote exciting stories in a little world he made his own, and remained a strongly moral writer as well as an entertaining one.

 

[BigBadBob141]

A few years ago the BBC did all of the Smiley books on the radio starting with "Call For The Dead" and ending with "The Secret Pilgrim", no idea if any of these are available on their playback web site but worth a try, and of course the good old beeb also did "Tinker, Tailor........" & " Smiley's People" on television with Smiley played by Alec Guinness, not to be missed and are available on DVD, when I think of Smiley I always picture him as Guinness!

 

[CupofJoe]

Just got my copy of The Night Manager... So now I have something [else] to read in Lockdown.

 

[Toby Frost]

Over the last couple of days, I watched the BBC adaptation of The Night Manager. I gather it changes the book somewhat, but it is extremely good and definitely recommended. I wonder if Le Carre, like Ballard, started to write the same story or theme over and again towards the end of his career: the well-meaning individual gets involved in spying and is crushed by the corrupt state. That said, I think one of Le Carre's great strengths is that he held up a mirror to modern society, albeit one tinted by espionage. There's an element of escapism, but the villainy feels very convincing.

 

[pogopossum]

I have a fortunate? unfortunate? tendency to order (generally from the library) books and to then pick them up and get caught up in them even though I am in the middle of other grabby works.
The latest example of this is John LeCarre's The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life.
Vignettes re old MI6 (secret service) hands berating him for either denigrating their service or for leaking procedures or even actual secrets, are described along with lovely descriptions of working with Alec Guiness, Richard Burton, numerous other encounters and most importantly the impact that his con man father had on his career and life.
I am not an Anglophile per se. I am, however both by family marriage and long term (youthful) residence in GB someone who is fairly aware of British sensibilities and culture.
Strongly recommend this book as delightful for:
1. Lovers of Le Carre's works.
2. Brits who are interested in a delightful jaundiced view of their history/culture/politics.
3. Non Brits who might find the described content to be of interest.

LeCarre (David Cornwell)'s prominence is such that he has access to an former Israeli agent who describes a death squad that killed more than a thousand Nazis after the war.. He dances (yes ) with Yassir Arafat, spends time with numerous reporters and courageous activists who saved thousands of refugee children (many of said activists do not survive their work) numerous spies, English, US, German, Czech, Israeli & other. Russian gangsters and thugs of many nationalities. Dissidents of many countries. An Israeli prison supervisor, who he learns speaks perfect German but who refuses to speak it with a Baader-Meinhof terrorist who was part of an attempt to blow up an El-Al jet. The supervisor had survived Buchenwald
The then Foreign minister of Russia describes trying to act as an intermediary between Sadaam Hussein and Bush #1 who refuses his offer to let Iraq leave Kuwait without a war. (Desert Storm). Meeting Thatcher, she lectured him & wanted the war. Similarly the Russian tries to mediate between Hussein and Bush#2 to prevent the second Iraq war. That time Hussein was the refusnik.
He meets Vaclav Havel, Thatcher, the President of Italy. Andrei Sakharov, two heads of the KGB, (one had become the above described Foreign Minister) and numerous others who somehow think of him as a superspy
He describes his disgust at the prevelance of actual Nazi war criminals, still in power in post-war West Germany.
Warlords in Africa, Stanley Kubrick, FF Coppola and other celebrities.
He uses almost all of the above characters (other than the politicos and obvious celebrities) in his books.
Read it.